Workforce Planning: How to Estimate the Jobs You Will Need in the Years Ahead

What questions does workforce planning answer?

The CIPD defines workforce planning as balancing labour supply, meaning the skills available, against demand, meaning the numbers required. It covers analysing the current workforce, forecasting future needs, identifying gaps and implementing solutions, so that the organisation has the right people with the right skills in the right place, at the right time and cost. ^[1]

The CIPD also distinguishes “hard” planning, which focuses on numbers and metrics, from “soft” or strategic planning, which provides a framework for interpreting them. ^[1] The practical lesson is that the spreadsheet is essential, but it is no substitute for a leadership discussion about where the organisation is heading and how its work will change.

What is the right time horizon?

No single horizon suits everyone. The strategic workforce planning guide issued by the UAE Federal Authority for Government Human Resources describes four maturity levels, and its framework allows forecasting up to ten years ahead. ^[3]

If your organisation is doing this for the first time, start with a three-year horizon for critical roles, then widen the scope and the period as data quality improves. To identify critical roles, ask three questions of each role: does a core service depend on it? Is it hard to fill from the labour market? Does it take a long time to prepare someone for it? A role that meets two of the three enters the plan first.

What are the stages of planning?

The main models converge in substance. The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) model has five steps, starting with setting strategic direction and ending with monitoring, evaluating and revising, while the CIPD sets out six iterative stages. ^{[1, 2]} The UAE federal guide sets out a generic six-stage model, shown below. ^[3]

The common thread is that the plan starts from the organisation’s objectives and is a repeating cycle, not a one-off project. ^{[1, 2]}

Supply analysis: who will still be with you in three years?

Supply is your current workforce and how it will change through movement. The UAE federal guide divides supply factors into internal ones, such as promotion, transfer, retirement, retrenchment and resignation, and external ones, such as labour market conditions and talent acquisition initiatives, and it uses workforce movement data from the previous three years as the trend baseline. ^[3]

Build the supply analysis for each job family rather than for the organisation as a whole, and answer four questions:
– How many people hold roles in this family now, and how are they distributed by age, contract and location?
– What have resignation and transfer rates been over the past three years?
– Who will reach retirement age within the plan horizon under the pension scheme that applies to them?
– Who could be promoted or transferred into this family from inside the organisation?

The CIPD advises keeping data on joiners, leavers and movers over time so that workforce snapshots can be compared year to year. ^[1]

Demand forecasting: how many roles will you need?

The UAE federal guide uses a simplified demand model: the number required in a future year equals current headcount multiplied by the effect of growth factors and divided by the effect of productivity improvements, for each year of the horizon. Growth raises demand; productivity gains reduce it. ^[3]

Not every job title responds to growth to the same degree. The guide classifies roles into three groups: fixed roles, on which growth has no effect; fully variable roles, which grow in full proportion; and roles with limited variability, affected by a percentage the organisation sets. ^[3] Customer service headcount usually tracks transaction volumes, for instance, whereas senior management roles do not grow at the same rate.

Because the future is uncertain, the CIPD recommends scenario planning to see how different futures would affect people requirements and to prepare contingency plans. ^[1] In practice, calculate demand under three growth assumptions: low, expected and high.

Take growth and productivity rates from sources you can defend: the strategic plan, budget proposals, digital transformation plans and service volume forecasts. Record each assumption in a log showing its source and who approved it, so you know what changed when the plan is reviewed and the estimate does not become a figure that is hard to explain to leadership or the finance function.

Hypothetical example: a customer service unit

A unit has 40 staff in a fully variable role. The organisation expects transactions to grow by 10% a year and productivity to improve by 5% a year thanks to digital services. Historical attrition is 8% a year, and two retirements are expected in year two. (All figures are hypothetical inputs for illustration.)

Read the table correctly: the cumulative shortage is 17 roles over three years if nothing is done, not necessarily 17 new hires. Greater productivity gains, lower attrition or internal transfers all change the figure. Rerun the calculation at 5% and 15% growth to see the range of need.

Gap analysis and closing options

The UAE federal guide distinguishes count gaps, meaning a shortage or surplus, from profile gaps, meaning differences between the required and current skills and workforce mix; gaps are then risk-rated and prioritised. ^[3] Numbers may be sufficient while skills are not, especially given what the CIPD describes as the growing need for digital and technological capability. ^[1]

The OPM model lists these closing options: recruitment, training or retraining, restructuring, contracting out, succession planning and technological enhancements. ^[2] A practical selection rule:
– Skills gap in existing roles: training and retraining first.
– Gap in a hard-to-fill critical role: succession planning and building internal candidates early.
– Temporary or specialist gap: contracting out, which the CIPD calls “borrowing” skills. ^[1]
– Permanent numerical gap: recruitment, once you are sure technology or job redesign cannot close it.
– Surplus: internal transfer and retraining before any other decision.

Nationalisation is part of the equation in the Gulf

In the private sector, nationalisation requirements determine part of your hiring source, and they differ by country:
– UAE: the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation requires companies with 50 or more employees to achieve 2% annual growth in the number of Emiratis in skilled roles, and companies with 20 to 49 employees in specified economic activities to hire at least one UAE national and retain existing Emirati staff. ^[4]
– Saudi Arabia: the Developed Nitaqat programme of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development sets a minimum Saudisation rate for each economic activity using a logarithmic formula based on total headcount, and classifies establishments into bands from Red to Platinum. ^[5] According to an analysis by the law firm Clyde & Co, the ministry issued an updated procedural guide for the programme in 2026, with forward-looking thresholds for 2026 to 2028, so work from the latest guide published through the ministry’s channels. ^[6]

Link each year’s hiring plan to the required rate, and check your country’s official portal before approving the plan, because requirements are updated. In the UAE federal government, the FAHR guide notes that the Ministry of Finance checks that workforce-related budget requests are derived from the planning methodology. ^[3]

Conclusion

Workforce planning starts from the organisation’s objectives and ends with a clear decision for every gap. Analyse supply by job family, forecast demand with explicit growth and productivity assumptions, distinguish numerical gaps from skills gaps, and review the plan every year alongside the budget.